Media turn to Zick on Occupiers crackdown

First Amendment SpeechLaw Professor Timothy Zick is the author of Free Speech Out of Doors: Preserving First Amendment Liberties in Public Places (Cambridge 2008).
Photo courtesy of the William & Mary Law School

While noting that the Constitution provides protections for speech, assembly, and petition in public places, Zick said that “governments have the power to regulate things for public safety, traffic flow, sanitation… They can and do regulate time of day, place and manner.”

Zick concurred with other legal scholars that governments have a legitimate interest both in protecting the public and preserving rights to public protest. “It's a delicate balance,” he said. “It's a difficult question that has to be decided locality by locality. But I think the calculus in some places has been ‘enough is enough.’”

Zick is the author of Speech out of Doors: Preserving First Amendment Liberties in Public Places (Cambridge University Press 2009), which deals with the “steady erosion” of public liberties in America. Zick graduated summa cum laude from Indiana University in 1989 and summa cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center in 1992, where he received the Francis E. Lucey, S.J. Award for graduating first in his class. Zick joined the faculty at William & Mary in 2008, after teaching for six years at St. John’s Law School.